As the year closes out, my thanks.

"There’s only enough time to dust off your cape, and then back to the skies for you".

-- Regina Dugan

"If I have seen further it’s by standing on the shoulders of giants".

-- Sir Isaac Newton

Those are two of my favourite quotes and affirmations.

At this point in any year they take on more meaning although 2017, from my point of view at least, has had them popping in my head more often than not.

The first is from Regina Dugan, a former director of DARPA, the US defense projects agency, as she related during a TED talk the story of a colleague who wrote those words in an email to her after a particular failure occurred. 

It’s a fantastic affirmation about how to approach tough times, failure, disappointment or sadness. That is, recognise it, take some time to clean up after it and then get back to course.

The second is a concept expressed by Sir Isaac Newton way back in the 1600s, who knew all about ups and downs, having described the phenomenon we now all know as “gravity”. 

It’s a great narrative on how a person is more than just an individual and that it’s through amazing connections, friendships, family and relationships you're inspired to move forward in the world and succeed.

The passage of a year in time always follows a pattern of ups and downs. That’s just the natural course of things. 

Sometimes it’s a nice, flowing range of hills and mountains; peaks which have a subtle rise and fall. A true work of art. 

Other times it can look like a bad ECG, with sharp, high peaks, accelerated to abruptly and decelerated away from just as quickly, with deep troughs coming one after the other and little time between them.

2017 was my ECG.

I've experienced loss, change, failure (on some fronts, continue to) and sadness associated with those things, some deeply personal and more in a single year for as long as I can remember.

Tough as it was though, 2017 has caused me to reflect deeply on those fantastic affirmations.

To connect back with how fortunate and humbled I am to have so many amazing people there to help me dust off my cape, get me back to the sky and be my shoulders, whether they knew it at the time or not or whether we’d even ever met.

So as the door to 2017 gets closed, locked, boarded and nailed shut, and the constant velocity arrival of 2018 calls you to form an orderly queue for entry, I want to send a thank you to all of those inspirational people; connections, friends and family.

Merry Christmas to you and your families.

Happy New Year and as you soar through it, I'll help you to keep your cape dusted, stand on the shoulders of giants, and I offer mine, for what they're worth

All the best for a 2018 brimming with opportunity to grow, shine, inspire, be amazing and make a difference.